Twice in a Lifetime
by Lady Raina Midnight
Summary: During a battle at the Dursley's, Harry Potter disappeared. What is going to happen to the wizarding world and what does the man and his demon fox have to do with it.
1. Chapter 1

**Twice in a Lifetime: Chapter One – Twists of Fate**

**_By Ptath and Lady Raina _**

**_Beta-ed by Silver Rayne _**

**_Warning: _**_This is slash but never fear – there's only a wee bit of adult innuendo and some light kissing. _

**_Disclaimer_**_: Harry Potter isn't ours. If it was, we wouldn't be poor college students. We'd be poor college students with lots of books and anime._

**_Important note: _**_this story is set after book 5, with one small change: Bellatrix Lestrange fell through the Veil, not Sirius. We will explain how this happened in a later chapter. Please bear with us, we need Sirius alive. _

'_This_' mean thinking to one's self ('_My name is George._')

"This" means talking out loud("I like cats.")

* * *

The attack began early one evening in July after one Mundungus Fletcher left his post at Number 4 Privet Drive early. The Death Eaters who swarmed the quiet street found The-Boy-Who-Lived and his cousin in the park nearby.

At the sight of the Death Eaters, Dudley Dursley began to gibber in terror and attempted to hide behind a tree, with little success. His cousin, however, did not gibber and did not hide. He was a wizard of considerable power, despite still being in school, and the aggravation, irritation and worry for the wizarding world he'd felt all summer had suddenly found an outlet.

The Death Eaters found subduing the boy harder than they had expected, but in the end, they won with sheer numbers. With The-Boy-Who-Lived locked in a Full-Body Bind, they seized his wand and turned it over to their master, who had stood and watched the battle.

"Harry Potter," he hissed. "We meet again." Voldemort's red eyes glinted maliciously as he looked at the green-eyed boy. "You're irritating ability to do exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time will bother me no more." With a sharp gesture, the Dark Lord canceled the spell holding Harry and shouted, "Crucio!"

Harry stumbled as the body bind was canceled, barely managing to dive out of the way of the Unforgivable rushing towards him. Voldemort continued to throw curses at the young wizard, but none found their target, as the young wizard began to dive one way and another in a frantic effort to remain unhexed. One particularly spectacular dive slammed Harry into a snickering Death Eater. His hands flailing blindly, he seized the wizard's wand and turned to face Voldemort.

Now armed, Harry and Voldemort began to duel feverishly. As they fought, Harry could feel himself growing weaker. '_My only chance,_' he thought desperately, '_is for the Ministry to send in Aurors when the notices about using Underage Magic don't do anything._' He grimaced silently. '_I'm doomed_.'

The curses, jinxes and charms continued to fly back and forth. The wand Harry had stolen had gotten hot to the touch and was starting to vibrate badly. He struggled to maintain his grip, his thoughts darting from Sirius's tired face to the memory of the graveyard, Cedric and his mother's screams. His hate for the Dark Wizards in front of him began to boil. With the last of his remaining strength, Harry and Voldemort exchanged one last curse.

"_Avada Kedavra,"_ two voices cried.

The green lights of the two Killing curses impacted between them, each one striving for dominance. The stolen wand was smoking now and seemed to have a life of its own. Voldemort crowed in triumph as his cursed ripped the other apart.

At that same moment, however, the wand Harry had seized exploded, throwing him clear of the Killing curse. The remains of the wand ripped through his left leg, rendering it completely useless and scattering his blood all over the ground. The force of the explosion had also thrown Voldemort back. He now lay unconscious on the ground several feet away.

Harry's limbs trembled as he dragged himself towards the Dark Lord's fallen wand. Just as he grabbed it, one of the assembled Death Eaters let out a loud screech and threw the Cruciatus curse at Harry.

Looking back on the pivotal event years later, Harry would never know for certain why things happened the way they did. Perhaps it was trying to defend himself with the brother wand of his own; a wand seeped in Dark Magic. Another possibility was the Cruciatus being miscast. Or perhaps the magic from the exploded wand, plus the magic from the duel combined in a bizarre way with the Unforgivable Curse. Whatever the cause, when the spell hit Harry Potter, he vanished with in flash of white light.

* * *

Grey-green eyes watched from a distance, observing closely, but not interfering. The man who had hidden himself behind a tree (with much better success than the terrified Dudley) had long graying black hair pulled into a simple tail and leaned on a wooden cane.

He winced when The-Boy-Who-Lived disappeared, knowing better than anyone what had happened to him. The assembled Death Eaters milled around for a moment in shocked surprise, waving their arms and talking in loud, excited voices. The sudden, distinctive _Bang_ that heralded an apparating wizard, however, stopped them in their tracks.

One Death Eater began barking orders, gesturing first at their unconscious leader and then at a stooped, quivering wizard. The wizard shook his head wildly, trying to refuse. A minute or two under the Cruciatus changed his mind. The man turned into a thin rat and bolted while the Death Eaters picked up the Dark Lord and vanished.

The man who had watched all of this narrowed his eyes as he tracked a small rat with a silver paw running through the grass. He waited for it to pass the limp form of a fainted Dudley, than brought his cane down sharply on its head as it ran by.

The man glanced at the Aurors appearing in the park before looking back down at the limp rat at his feet. He drew his wand from a slot in his cane and with a sharp gesture and a flash of light, the rat turned back into a man. The wizard smiled faintly, pleased with his work, before turning and limping away.

Kingsley Shacklebolt held a long holly wand in his hand with a dismayed expression on his normally impassive face. A wizard's wand lying in a pool of blood in a park in an area that housed no wizards save for The-Boy-Who-Lived…an area which, it had been reported, had been filled with Dark Wizards, mostly likely Death Eaters.

While Shacklebolt was normally in charge of the hunt for Sirius Black, the Auror who had run into Auror Headquarters screaming about Dark Wizards attacking Harry Potter had grabbed every warm body in the office and returned to the Little Whinging area.

The tall Auror clenched the wand in his hand in determination. Seeing another Auror approaching, he asked the question that would soon be burning in everyone's minds. "Where is Harry Potter?"

The Auror winced before replying. "No sign of him yet, sir. Not much sign of _anything_, actually. We know Dark magic was used, but not which spells. We know there was a large group of wizards here, but we don't know how many or what they were doing here. We found a wizard's wand, but not the wizard who owns it." The Auror sighed, a look of defeat in his eyes. "Unless we can find a witness, we may never know what happened here."

"Good thing we might have one!" A female voice interrupted. The two Aurors turned to look at the young woman with short, spiky violet hair in surprise. "Found two people, Kingsley. One's a fat lump of a muggle boy who probably saw what happened. Can't think of any other reason for him to have pissed himself and fainted. The other is a rather beat up chap wearing black robes and has a silver hand. He looks like he was hit o'er the head with something."

Kingsley let out a sigh of relief. "Well done, Tonks. We'll send the witnesses to headquarters and question them there. We'll need to make it fast so the boy at least isn't missed." He thought for a moment before adding one more thought. "Send someone to the Potter boy's house to inform his relatives that their nephew was attacked and has disappeared. Let them know we'll keep them apprised of our search."

Tonks nodded and bounded towards the wizards clustered around their witnesses. After speaking with an elderly Auror, she turned again and started walking up the street towards Number Four Privet Drive.

* * *

_Well, Chapter one up. Review are very welcome, I need all the help I can get. Any flames will be used to roast marshmallows for s'mores. _


	2. Chapter 2

**_By Ptath and Lady Raina _**

**_Beta-ed by Silver Rayne _**

**_Warning: _**_This is slash but never fear – there's only a wee bit of adult innuendo and some light kissing. _

**_Disclaimer_**_: Harry Potter isn't ours. If it was, we wouldn't be poor college students. We'd be poor college students with lots of books and anime._

**_Important note: _**_this story is set after book 5, with one small change: Bellatrix Lestrange fell through the Veil, not Sirius. We will explain how this happened in a later chapter. As that chapter has not yet been written, we cannot tell you which one it will be in. Please bear with us, we need Sirius alive. _

'_This_' mean thinking to one's self ('_My name is George._')

"This" means talking out loud("I like cats.")

* * *

Madam Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, had never met such a disagreeable person as the boy sitting in front of her. She adjusted her monocle before looking once more at the cousin of The-Boy-Who-Lived. The boy in question quivered in terror, his eyes darting first one way and then another.

"Now then, Mr. Dursley," she said in a soothing voice, "as soon as you tell us what you saw, you will be free to leave.

The fat teenager looked at her in pure terror. "Who are you?!" He demanded. "What are you doing here?! Where's Harry?!"

"I am Madam Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. We are here because you and your cousin were attacked by…-" she paused, searching for the correct term. She somehow doubted that this boy would comprehend 'Death Eater.' "…enemies of his immediate family's. As to where he is, well, I'm afraid we don't know. We are hoping you could assist us by answering a few questions."

Something very interesting was happening Amelia noted to herself. Dudley had first turned very white and was now turning a most remarkable shade of purple.

When he spoke next, his voice was extremely high-pitched and shaky. "M-magic?!" He said the word with the air of a five-year old hearing an adult saying 'a bad word.'

Amelia suddenly remembered something about the Dursley family being 'the worst sort of Muggles' from Minerva McGonagall. She spoke therefore, in a tone even more soothing than before. "Yes, Mr. Dursley. Magic. I'm sure you know about Mr. Potter attending Hogwarts?"

Dudley gasped in horror at the mention of the school, but it wasn't long before he spoke, or rather, shrieked. "He's a freak! He's nothing but a filthy freak! He goes to a school of freaks - that's all any of you are! Parasites! You're - you're - you're wrong! Unnatural! You can't be human! You're -"

In a moment of pure, unadulterated impulse, Amelia whipped out her wand and pointed at him. Channeling her emotions, the wand sent out a shower of sapphire and ruby sparks at his face.

THAT certainly shut him up.

Staring at the stick of wood, Dudley trembled.

Amelia, for her part, didn't regret her action. If the only way to get the boy to talk on such short notice was to threaten him with a wand, then so be it. She was heavily offended at being called 'unnatural' as anyone would; she also could not believe that this ... person ... was related to The-Boy-That-Lived. She suddenly had a very clear picture of what it must be like for Harry Potter at his 'home.'

When she spoke next, her voice became very quiet and very dangerous. "Mr. Dursley, I am the Head of one of the most important departments in the Ministry of Magic. In fact, it is quite possibly _the_ most important. Your cousin is far more important to my people than you could ever hope to be. In fact, the only way you will ever even be mentioned is in a footnote as one of the last remaining relatives of The-Boy-Who-Lived. And I don't think that it would be a very complimentary footnote. Harry Potter is missing and you are the only witness we have. You will not leave this room until we have every scrap of information you can give us. And we will get it - one way or another." More sapphire sparks flew out of the wand, the only outward portrayal of her fury.

Amelia didn't plan to carry out her threat, of course. Not only was it against the law for her to do such a thing, she didn't want to waste the magical power. Her eyebrow twitched. "SPEAK!"

What came spilling out of Dudley's mouth wasn't much. Apparently he had seen the Death Eaters, referred to by him as "those weirdoes in cloaks," converging, had promptly jumped behind to hide, and had stayed there, unnoticed, until the spells began to fly as the Death Eaters struggled to overcome his exceedingly more athletic cousin. The moment he had seen flashes from the wands, he had fainted, and remembered no more.

Disgusted, Amelia shouted for someone to take the boy home.

* * *

"I can't BELIEVE this!" Tonks was back, and making her rage known to Kingsley, sitting comfortably in his small cubical with Amelia. "They are simply IMPOSSIBLE! IMPOSSIBLE! I can't think of one reason why Harry Potter should have to stay with those - those-!" Sputtering, she slapped the desk with one hand.

"Narrow-minded fools?" Amelia supplied, offering the woman a chair.

"Not quite as strong as I want, but it'll do," Tonks grumbled, sitting down.

"It went badly, I take it?" Kingsley asked.

"That's an understatement! At first the aunt and uncle wouldn't let me in the house; finally got in by telling them that their son was hurt, and they needed to talk to me if they wanted to help him. Well, that did the trick: they had the door open in a thrice." Tonks blew her hair, now bright scarlet to define her anger, out of her face. "I told them about what we thought had happened, and you won't believe what that Vernon Dursley said to me!"

"What?" Kingsley asked; judging from her scowl, Amelia had a pretty good idea.

"He told me that The-Boy-Who-Lived had most likely attacked his cousin, threw spells around to gather our attention and then ran off when he saw us coming! Never mind all the blood and the fact the place stinks of Dark Magic!"

"He actually used the word 'spell?'" Amelia asked, amused.

Tonks grinned ruefully. "Well, no, he didn't. But that's what he meant. For a minute there I thought he was going to have a coronary, his face was so red!" Then her face sobered. "Naturally, I told him he was wrong. After all, this was The-Boy-Who-Lived that we're talking about. Took down You-Know-Who and all that. But he didn't believe me and said that 'Potter' was nothing but a grubby trouble-making parasite, forcing him and his wife to actually **FEED** him, and give him **BOARD**." The last part of the sentence dripped with heavy sarcasm, and she emphasized with quotation marks in mid-air. "That made me quite mad and I told him that if he couldn't appreciate the boy then we would find someone else to take care of him.

And then he told me straight off that he didn't care! 'Take the brat,' he said. 'We sure as hell don't want him!' And all his wife could do was talk about Harry Potter like he was some kind of nasty scab." Tonks' face one again grew dark with rage. "Those are the worst people I've ever met - Magical AND Muggle!"

"This is serious, Kingsley," Amelia prompted. "If Vernon Dursley says they won't take him back…"

"They wouldn't regardless," he replied. "I am NOT going to let The-Boy-Who-Lived, the one who saved every single one of us, live in such a place. I don't care what I have to do; he is NOT going back."

There was a note of finality in his voice. Tonks whooped in agreement. Amelia was more restrained, but agreed nonetheless. "We have to find Harry first," she cautioned..

"Then let's get on with it," Tonks affirmed. "Where's that other fellow? The one with the silver hand?"

"In a holding room," Kingsley said. "You want to come with me?"

Tonks sprang to her feet. "I would be happy to."

They crossed the hall to the cell that held their second witness. Kingsley asked one of the guards if they had been able to get anything out of him yet.

The guard gave him a side-ways look, "Only one thing. His name."

"What is it?" Kingsley demanded.

The guard hesitated.

"C'mon old boy, what is it?" Tonks asked, impatient as ever.

"Well - you see Ms. Tonks, it just can't be right."

"Why not?"

"Because the name he gave us belongs to a dead man!"

"Give it to us anyway," Kingsley finally snapped.

"He said - he said his name was Peter Pettigrew!"

* * *

_Author's note_

_I do apologize. I meant to have this up last weekend but have not actually been at a computer I can work from in three weeks. I want to thank Linda, ChiffonShock, mumimeanjudy, and Moi for leaving reviews on the previous chapter. I hope you enjoyed and as always please leave a review. Any flames left will be used to roast marshmallows._


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